Closed System
To what extent is a relationship a closed system? In the universe there’s a conservation of mass and energy - neither can be destroyed, only converted into other forms. Are there similar laws for relationships?
I’ve mused before, although years ago in a much more private venue, that relationships are closed systems in that sadness and other emotions are impossible not to share. If your partner is sad, you’re unhappy as well. Well, assuming you have a soul.
Sadness can be created far too easily so there seems to be no conservation of emotion. Or is it perhaps just converted? Frustration becomes anger becomes sadness. So there could be a conservation of emotional energy perhaps, this energy just existing in different forms.
Mastery of converting one type of energy like chemical into another like kinetic has changed the world, just look at the internal combustion engine.
So the trick to mastery of relationships would exist in the knowledge of how to convert sadness into happiness. If this method could be found, it could change the world. Those that have stumbled upon methods early on shared these methods far and wide: flowers, chocolates, poems, grand gestures, etc unfortunately diluting their effectiveness.
Is sadness the fuel that brings change though? Anger? Frustration? I don’t think so. The gasoline here is regret and perhaps shame. By what process can this be efficiently converted into happiness? I guess it takes creativity, but what if you don’t have the time?
